SAN DIEGO, Dec. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- The wave of people looking for the top franchises for 2013 is increasing daily. With more and more people leaning towards self employment and starting personal businesses due to the poor economy and not being able to rely on a job that may decide to downsize any day, the interest in franchise opportunities has understandably grown. According to the International Franchise Association, the Franchise Business Index has been steadily increasing since August and this is expected to continue as small business optimism increases for the New Year.

Franchises provide many benefits over starting a business from scratch. When starting a business from scratch, potential business owners will face many challenges. They will have to come up with a business idea that is profitable, as well as a comprehensive business plan and a way to market their business and gain brand recognition.

With a franchise, many of these business issues are already taken care of. The franchise will usually come with a ready to use business plan, with a product or service that is in demand and brand which many people will already know and trust. This brand recognition is what most people pay for when they buy a franchise.

One trend that many are seeing is the surge in interest people have had not only in traditional franchises such as fast food chains or convenience stores etc. but in online franchises. Part of the reason many of the top franchises for 2013 involve some sort of online facet is the fact that the internet grants business owners access to the world wide market as opposed to the much smaller local market that could be reached through traditional business marketing practices.

There are many options when it comes to online franchises. The services and products that can be marketed are virtually endless. One thing that potential online franchise owners should look for is how much demand the service or product has for it, as well as how recognizable the company offering the product or service is.

Valpak Direct Marketing Systems Inc., Cybertary, Mini Cities Inc., WSI Internet, Results! Travel and Liberty Tax Service are all online franchises which have been ranked as some of the top franchises for 2013 by Franchise 500.

These online franchise businesses are also usually less costly to start up than offline franchises and this could be a deciding factor for many people. This means that business owners can start a business even if they have a small budget to work with or instead devote more of their finances to other pressing needs.

Another reason online franchises are some of the top franchises for 2013 is because many online functions can be automated. This means that business can be transacted even when the business owner is sleeping. This gives great potential for generating passive income, which continues to flow in even when the person is not actively engaged in working on or promoting the business.

These online businesses usually only rely on the person mastering a few simple online marketing skills. Learning these skills is easy, as there are many good online resources, many of which offer this training free of charge.

Those who would like to avail of this free training can click here. Those who would like to learn more about the franchise opportunities available in the new year can read the full Top Franchises For 2013 review.

More and more brands have jumped on the IoT bandwagon. We have an excess of wearables – activity trackers, smartwatches, smart glasses and sneakers, and more that track seemingly endless datapoints. However, most consumers have no idea what “IoT” means. Creating more wearables that track data shouldn't be the aim of brands; delivering meaningful, tangible relevance to their users should be.
We're in a period in which the IoT pendulum is still swinging. Initially, it swung toward "smart for smar...

Regulatory requirements exist to promote the controlled sharing of information, while protecting the privacy and/or security of the information. Regulations for each type of information have their own set of rules, policies, and guidelines. Cloud Service Providers (CSP) are faced with increasing demand for services at decreasing prices. Demonstrating and maintaining compliance with regulations is a nontrivial task and doing so against numerous sets of regulatory requirements can be daunting task...

Get deep visibility into the performance of your databases and expert advice for performance optimization and tuning. You can't get application performance without database performance. Give everyone on the team a comprehensive view of how every aspect of the system affects performance across SQL database operations, host server and OS, virtualization resources and storage I/O. Quickly find bottlenecks and troubleshoot complex problems.

Without a clear strategy for cost control and an architecture designed with cloud services in mind, costs and operational performance can quickly get out of control. To avoid multiple architectural redesigns requires extensive thought and planning. Boundary (now part of BMC) launched a new public-facing multi-tenant high resolution monitoring service on Amazon AWS two years ago, facing challenges and learning best practices in the early days of the new service.
In his session at 19th Cloud Exp...

"We build IoT infrastructure products - when you have to integrate different devices, different systems and cloud you have to build an application to do that but we eliminate the need to build an application. Our products can integrate any device, any system, any cloud regardless of protocol," explained Peter Jung, Chief Product Officer at Pulzze Systems, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

The cloud promises new levels of agility and cost-savings for Big Data, data warehousing and analytics. But it’s challenging to understand all the options – from IaaS and PaaS to newer services like HaaS (Hadoop as a Service) and BDaaS (Big Data as a Service). In her session at @BigDataExpo at @ThingsExpo, Hannah Smalltree, a director at Cazena, provided an educational overview of emerging “as-a-service” options for Big Data in the cloud. This is critical background for IT and data professionals...

Internet of @ThingsExpo has announced today that Chris Matthieu has been named tech chair of Internet of @ThingsExpo 2017 New York
The 7th Internet of @ThingsExpo will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Chris Matthieu is the co-founder and CTO of Octoblu, a revolutionary real-time IoT platform recently acquired by Citrix. Octoblu connects things, systems, people and clouds to a global mesh network allowing users to automate and control design flo...

You are moving to the Cloud. The question is not if, it’s when. Now that your competitors are in the cloud and lapping you, your “when” better hurry up and get here. But saying and doing are two different things.
In his session at @DevOpsSummit at 18th Cloud Expo, Robert Reeves, CTO of Datical, explained how DevOps can be your onramp to the cloud. By adopting simple, platform independent DevOps strategies, you can accelerate your move to the cloud.
Spoiler Alert: He also makes sure you don’t...

President Obama recently announced the launch of a new national awareness campaign to "encourage more Americans to move beyond passwords – adding an extra layer of security like a fingerprint or codes sent to your cellphone." The shift from single passwords to multi-factor authentication couldn’t be timelier or more strategic. This session will focus on why passwords alone are no longer effective, and why the time to act is now.
In his session at 19th Cloud Expo, Chris Webber, security strateg...

"We are an all-flash array storage provider but our focus has been on VM-aware storage specifically for virtualized applications," stated Dhiraj Sehgal of Tintri in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 19th Cloud Expo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

The WebRTC Summit New York, to be held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, announces that its Call for Papers is now open. Topics include all aspects of improving IT delivery by eliminating waste through automated business models leveraging cloud technologies. WebRTC Summit is co-located with 20th International Cloud Expo and @ThingsExpo. WebRTC is the future of browser-to-browser communications, and continues to make inroads into the traditional, difficult, plug-in web co...

Redis is not only the fastest database, but it has become the most popular among the new wave of applications running in containers. Redis speeds up just about every data interaction between your users or operational systems.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Dave Nielsen, Developer Relations at Redis Labs, shared the functions and data structures used to solve everyday use cases that are driving Redis' popularity.

Enterprise IT has been in the era of Hybrid Cloud for some time now. But it seems most conversations about Hybrid are focused on integrating AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google ECM into existing on-premises systems. Where is all the Private Cloud? What do technology providers need to do to make their offerings more compelling? How should enterprise IT executives and buyers define their focus, needs, and roadmap, and communicate that clearly to the providers?

Amazon has gradually rolled out parts of its IoT offerings, but these are just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to optimizing their backend AWS offerings, Amazon is laying the ground work to be a major force in IoT - especially in the connected home and office.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Chris Kocher, founder and managing director of Grey Heron, explained how Amazon is extending its reach to become a major force in IoT by building on its dominant cloud IoT platform, its Dash Button strat...

"We are a custom software development, engineering firm. We specialize in cloud applications from helping customers that have on-premise applications migrating to the cloud, to helping customers design brand new apps in the cloud. And we specialize in mobile apps," explained Peter Di Stefano, Vice President of Marketing at Impiger Technologies, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 19th Cloud Expo, held November 1-3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

When was the last time you’ve ever heard anyone say “IT Applications & Operations”? Frankly, in my 30+ year career in IT, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone use this term. The typical term we hear is IT Infrastructure & Operations. These two go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly, which tells us a lot about how we view the field of IT. For those that may not be familiar with the role of IT ...

This is a guest post from Cloudinary, a cloud-based image and video management solution. We are always looking for ways to help companies deliver digital experiences that will meet customers expectations in terms of content and performance. Tackling these 5 challenges is a good step towards delivering a top-notch digital experience.
We are in the midst of a great evolution when it comes to webs...

The holiday season is nearly upon us (I’ve already heard Christmas songs being played…really?) and retailers are usually the big winners during the holiday season. However, leading retailers are already thinking beyond the current holiday season, and not just from marketing and merchandising perspectives. These leading retailers are considering how this holiday season – and the resulting wealth of...

I was on a high-rise construction site 34-floors above the city. I was talking to the construction crew when a fight broke out. There was an explosion and the floor collapsed. I removed the virtual reality (VR) goggles and laughed. It was so real. The VR solutions provided an incredible experience, almost like being there. As good as my experience was, it was not reality. It was a controlled pre-p...

The cloud promises new levels of agility and cost-savings for Big Data, data warehousing and analytics. But it’s challenging to understand all the options – from IaaS and PaaS to newer services like HaaS (Hadoop as a Service) and BDaaS (Big Data as a Service). In her session at @BigDataExpo at @ThingsExpo, Hannah Smalltree, a director at Cazena, provided an educational overview of emerging “as-a-s...

Internet of @ThingsExpo has announced today that Chris Matthieu has been named tech chair of Internet of @ThingsExpo 2017 New York
The 7th Internet of @ThingsExpo will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Chris Matthieu is the co-founder and CTO of Octoblu, a revolutionary real-time IoT platform recently acquired by Citrix. Octoblu connects things, s...

As we enter the final week before the 19th International Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo in Santa Clara, CA, it's time for me to reflect on six big topics that will be important during the show. Hybrid Cloud: This general-purpose term seems to provide a comfort zone for many enterprise IT managers. It sounds reassuring to be able to work with one of the major public-cloud providers like AWS or Microsoft ...

Enterprise IT has been in the era of Hybrid Cloud for some time now. But it seems most conversations about Hybrid are focused on integrating AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google ECM into existing on-premises systems. Where is all the Private Cloud? What do technology providers need to do to make their offerings more compelling? How should enterprise IT executives and buyers define their focus, needs, a...

Multiple agencies across the U.S. government are paying closer attention to the software they are buying. More specifically, they want to know what open source and third party components were used to build the software applications. The report notes:
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to know what open source components are being used in medical devices.

2016 brought about more cyberattacks than we thought possible, especially involving ransomware, and we definitely won't see that trend breaking stride in 2017. By next year, we expect every single adult in the US will know a blood relative that has had their identity stolen - the Internal Revenue Service reported that 2.7 million people had their identities stolen in 2014 and according to TransUni...

I’m a huge fan of open source DevOps tools. I’m also a huge fan of scaling open source tools for the enterprise. But having talked with my fair share of companies over the years, one important thing I’ve learned is that you can’t scale your release process using open source tools alone. They simply require too much scripting and maintenance when used that way. Scripting may be fine for smaller org...

Between 2005 and 2020, data volumes will grow by a factor of 300 – enough data to stack CDs from the earth to the moon 162 times. This has come to be known as the ‘big data’ phenomenon. Unfortunately, traditional approaches to handling, storing and analyzing data aren’t adequate at this scale: they’re too costly, slow and physically cumbersome to keep up. Fortunately, in response a new breed of te...

In his general session at 19th Cloud Expo, Manish Dixit, VP of Product and Engineering at Dice, discussed how Dice leverages data insights and tools to help both tech professionals and recruiters better understand how skills relate to each other and which skills are in high demand using interactive visualizations and salary indicator tools to maximize earning potential.
Manish Dixit is VP of Pr...

For large enterprise organizations, it can be next-to-impossible to identify attacks and act to mitigate them in good time. That’s one of the reasons executives often discover security breaches when an external researcher — or worse, a journalist — gets in touch to ask why hundreds of millions of logins for their company’s services are freely available on hacker forums.
The huge volume of incomin...

Monitoring of Docker environments is challenging. Why? Because each container typically runs a single process, has its own environment, utilizes virtual networks, or has various methods of managing storage. Traditional monitoring solutions take metrics from each server and applications they run. These servers and applications running on them are typically very static, with very long uptimes. Docke...

Logs are continuous digital records of events generated by all components of your software stack – and they’re everywhere – your networks, servers, applications, containers and cloud infrastructure just to name a few. The data logs provide are like an X-ray for your IT infrastructure. Without logs, this lack of visibility creates operational challenges for managing modern applications that drive t...

@DevOpsSummit taking place June 6-8, 2017 at Javits Center, New York City, is co-located with the 20th International Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. @DevOpsSummit at Cloud Expo New York Call for Papers is now open.

The 20th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. Cloud Expo, to be held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, brings together Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, Containers, Microservices and WebRTC to one location.
With cloud computing driving a higher percentage of enterprise IT budgets every year, it becomes increasingly impo...

Modern organizations typically use several IT tools to monitor their applications, networks and other IT components in real time. Unfortunately, this leads to independent data islands, which creates a one-dimensional view of IT. In order to make strategic decisions, organizations need an IT operational analytics tool to analyze data from multiple sources, spot trends and make better decisions.

The IoT continued its toddler-like growth and stumbles in 2016. Here are five trends to look for in 2017 as the IoT enters its adolescence and how to benefit from them.
1. Ecosystems begin to determine winners and losers
Previously these were nice in-the-future concerns; now they will really count. Filling out a whole product value proposition through partnerships has repeatedly proven its impo...

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.